by Lisa Black
Theresa could barely breathe. “What other room? What did you do?”
“I couldn’t move at first, my arms felt so heavy. He kept saying I shouldn’t worry, that this wouldn’t hurt, he was only examining my jaundice, but even at fifteen I wasn’t that stupid and I would have clocked him one if I hadn’t been so groggy. But when he got my brassiere off and put his lips—well, I clocked him one anyway, groggy or no.”
“What did he do?”
“Fell back on the floor—he’d been perching on the edge of this cot, and I guess he was off balance…. I jumped right over him and out the door, which led into his office. We were in a little closet, or storage area, behind his desk. Lucky for me he hadn’t locked his office door, and I went right out it and out of the building and didn’t stop running until I got to my aunt’s house.”
“Did you scream?”
“The whole way home.”
“Did anyone from the building come to help?”
“It was dark by then. I don’t know how long that bastard had me in there, but it had to be at least six hours. He drugged me, then waited for everyone else to go home.”
Or he had afternoon appointments he couldn’t cancel, Theresa thought, and wanted plenty of time alone with his prize. Detectives had long theorized that the Torso killer had lured and drugged his victims, to explain why they had no defensive injuries and remnants of a last meal in their stomachs.
But on the other hand, the Butcher had preferred young adult males, sometimes older males, and rarely women. Never young girls. Though perhaps after meeting Irene Schaffer he had decided they were too much trouble.
“Did you tell your mother?”
“I told everybody. My uncle called the police, and they came to the house. The next day they took me back to the building to identify this Dr. Louis, which I did, plain and simple. Nearly peed my pants, but I stood between those two cops and pointed right at him.”
“What did he say?”
“He nodded and smiled and told the police I would come around the offices sometimes, begging for a handout, and he’d felt sorry for me and gave me an apple once and a peppermint. He said the day before he’d had nothing for me, and that I got angry and said he’d be sorry.”
“They believed him?” Theresa could picture the man in Edward Corliss’s photo, tall and well dressed, describing his version of events with that clipped, professional tone that still swayed juries more than any female could.
“Things were different then,” Irene Schaffer repeated. “Doctors were gods. I was a truant tomboy and there were no witnesses. Apparently he had no record and in those days they didn’t have computers that gave you a map of where all the mashers live.”
Theresa chewed at her thumbnail. “And you think this man could be the Torso killer?”
“They always said he was a doctor, and the office is right on the banks of Kingsbury Run. Dr. Louis hung out at the rail yards, down by West Third and the Abbey Street Bridge, where they found some of the bodies. Don’t bite your nails, dear.”
“The detectives checked every person in the city with a record of sexual offenses. Maybe they would have investigated him.” Theresa didn’t bother wishing to read all the original police reports. She knew from books on the subject that nearly all of the voluminous case material had been lost over the years.
“Not that chubby cop,” Irene said, her mouth set in a hard line. “The skinny one, I think he believed me. But there was nothing he could do.”
“Which cop?”
“The one whose body you found. James Miller.”
CHAPTER 19
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
PRESENT DAY
Theresa drove home in a daze. So much information, so many years. James Miller had been killed in 1936 in the same building in which Irene Schaffer had been nearly molested—by a doctor with, one would assume, the anatomical knowledge to cut up a body. Did James go there to confront the doctor about Irene, over a year later? Why? Had James found some evidence in the meantime? Did he then stumble on the Torso killer?
Or did the doctor kill James to prevent his own arrest for the molestation, and both incidents had nothing to do with the Torso killer? After all, the serial killer liked to dump his victims, not preserve them for posterity.
And he had dumped two nearly on the doorstep of 4950 Pullman. Seventy-five years later, someone repeated the process. Why? How?
It had begun to rain again, and Theresa slowed to negotiate the sharp curve from 480 onto southbound I-71. The car behind her insisted on riding four inches from her bumper. Missing a headlight, it winked at her in her rearview mirror and the rain pelted her windshield even harder as she sped up.
From his notes, however, James had been investigating the Torso killings. He might have completely forgotten about Irene and wound up entombed in 4950 Pullman as a coincidence.
But James had believed the young girl, in a world where no one else would.
Speaking of young girls, now they had Kim Hammond. Unlike Dr. Louis and the Torso killer, the sick bastard who had decapitated Kim still walked the streets, and like the Torso killer he did not intend to stop. Who were these two male victims? Did the killer know them, these mannequins in his diorama? Did he realize that, while he imitated a 1935 murder, Theresa would not be imitating 1935 investigative technology? Science had come a long way since then and she meant to utilize all of it.
What helped the Torso killer remain anonymous then had a great deal to do with the inability to identify his victims. They must have been transients, members of the uncounted, unseen forces riding the rails and looking for work. Very few people lived that way anymore; even today’s version of that group, the homeless, was somewhat monitored and not so mobile.
Once home, she pulled her car into its spot but left the garage door open. She would go out again to walk next door and say good night to her mother.
Rachael had called. The blinking light on the answering machine let her know this as soon as she entered the house. It had to be Rachael—no one else ever called her besides Frank, who would use the Nextel. Theresa dropped her purse and empty lunch bag on the table and pushed the black button on the console.
It won’t be her, she warned herself as she waited for the tape to rewind. It will be a dial tone left over from a computerized sales pitch, or the library calling with a book on hold. Or even Chris Cavanaugh.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me. Just wanted to tell you everything’s fine. Talk to you later, bye.”
Rachael. Why hadn’t she called on the cell? She should know Theresa wouldn’t be home, that she’d be at work or en route, so call on the cell. Instead Rachael rang when she knew Theresa would not be there, to avoid wasting twenty minutes on a conversation with her mother. That was okay, though. Her daughter sounded healthy and had been alive as late as this afternoon, and that was the important thing.
Theresa checked the caller ID: 6:00 P.M. She should have been home by then but had dallied with the cellar at 4950 Pullman, a couple of dead bodies, and Irene Schaffer.
Okay. Rachael had attempted to voluntarily call her mother. Life is good. Life is just as it should be.
And it gave her a reason to call her back and apologize for missing the call.
No answer. She left a message.
Theresa washed her face, changed her clothes, thought—not seriously—about cooking something to eat, and wandered into Rachael’s room, as she did at least once a day, just to make sure the cat wasn’t sleeping on the bed and the dog hadn’t made off with one of the stuffed animals. Which of course they hadn’t, because Theresa kept the door shut. But she checked anyway. The room remained in perfect order, which told her, more than the silence or the untouched food in the refrigerator or always finding the TV remote right where she left it, that her daughter was gone.
Rachael’s window faced the street. A single car passed slowly by, with one dark headlight.
Theresa made sure to close Rachael’s bedroom door behind her. Then she walked
through the strengthening rain to the next home, where she asked her mother if her great-grandfather had ever mentioned the Torso Murders.
Agnes sat at her kitchen table, sorting recipes, gray hair bouncing in classic curls. “I don’t think so. Do you think apple turnovers are better with cheese or with a honey glaze?”
“I think they’re better with vanilla ice cream. What about Grandpa Joe?”
“He liked the honey glaze.”
“The Torso Murders, Mom.”
“Oh, that. I don’t remember. It was before his time.”
“But Great-grandpa would have been working at Boys’ Town right after Eliot Ness founded it.”
Her mother looked up from the stained pieces of paper. “Oh, yes. Joe used to mention that now and then. Usually when you two would be watching repeats of that Untouchables show—the one with Robert Stack. He shouldn’t have let you watch that stuff.”
“Or I wouldn’t be a practicing ghoul today, I know.” Theresa didn’t try to explain that “all that stuff” was the only stuff she’d ever cared about. If other people found that odd, she couldn’t have cared less, so long as it seemed normal and fine in the eyes of the man she admired above all others.
“Honey, I don’t think you’re a ghoul. I just hate to see you dealing with all those terrible people.”
Murderers, she meant. “They’re long gone by the time I get there.” Tonight had been an exception.
Her mother merely raised an eyebrow. Several incidents in Theresa’s past had disproven that statement.
Theresa ignored those memories and said nothing about Kim Hammond or the two men on the hillside. Luckily, her mother never watched the news and, if the angels of peace were on Theresa’s side, might be too busy at the restaurant to pick up a paper.
The horror of the Torso Murders, however, had faded with time and could be safely brought up. “What did Grandpa say?”
Agnes gave the question some thought. “He said your great-grandfather Gabriel always thought Ness looked in the wrong places. He said that gangsters were easy because you always knew where to find them. Ness couldn’t figure out a guy who was insane, but then, neither could anyone else.”
Theresa let her mother sort recipes for a while as she pondered this point. In the 1930s, no one would have ever heard of a serial killer. They would have approached the investigation like any other—rounding up the usual suspects, criminals, what they used to call sexual deviants. Of course that encompassed a lot more than now, since it used to be a crime to be homosexual or have an interracial relationship. “In that day they’d be looking for a man who stood out. Knowing what we know about most serial killers, nowadays we’d look for a man with a steady job, who doesn’t bother his neighbors and has no or a very minor criminal record. Someone who doesn’t stand out.”
“Then how do you catch him?” her mother asked.
This stumped Theresa. “Evidence, I suppose. That’s where I come in.”
“Your great-grandfather Gabriel told your grandpa one other thing, too. He said it had to have something to do with the railroads.”
“Because the victims were found around the train tracks?”
“I have no idea why he said it, he just did. You should go to bed, honey. You look tired.”
“Were you going to make turnovers?”
Her mother smiled. “Not tonight. This weekend, at the restaurant. Come for dinner and for two forty-nine you can buy one.”
“Highway robbery.” Theresa stood up and said good night.
“And don’t forget about Friday.”
“Aw, Mom!”
“We always have birthday parties with the family. Especially a big one like this.”
A small house crowded with aunts upon aunts and cousins upon cousins. Theresa loved them all, but not when they were trying to convince her that the irretrievable loss of her youth was something to be happy about. “Why should I celebrate turning forty?”
“Every birthday is one to celebrate,” her mother said in a way that made Theresa feel ungrateful, which, of course, had been the idea. Mothers were good at that.
Theresa said good night and trooped through the rain, now faded to a heavy mist, to her home. The trees whispered above her and tossed a few cold drops down her neck while she ordered herself to get into the habit of leaving lights on, now that Rachael would not be there before her with every bulb blazing, the TV going, and the stereo bulging the walls. But Harry, her dead fiancé’s dog, stood guard with tail wagging to let her know the perimeter had been secured, so lights did not seem that important.
A truck drove by, the name of a roofing company emblazoned on the side. No other cars, with or without missing headlights.
She tucked herself into bed with James Miller’s notes and a business card. She dialed the phone before glancing at the clock and then debated whether she should hang up. She was still debating when he answered. “Mr. Corliss? It’s Theresa MacLean. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“Not at all, young lady. I’m something of a night owl. What can I do for you?”
Helpful hint for women of a certain age, Theresa thought: Hang out with people at least twenty years your senior and they will make you feel youthful. “I need to learn about trains.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” he said, chuckling. “So to speak.”
CHAPTER 20
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
1935
James Miller dallied with his partner only long enough to drink a cup of coffee before he left Walter to the tender ministrations of a middle-aged waitress and moved out into the bustle of the Terminal Tower. His stomach growled, but he told himself he was too interested in the investigation to eat. It didn’t work.
He carried the coat, in its paper bag, after Walter refused responsibility for that particular piece of evidence. “I’m not eating my lunch with something that pervert touched on my lap. Now either sit down with me or scram.”
James scrammed. There were no less than three drugstores scattered throughout the two floors of shops. All three were popular, but at two P.M. he did not have to deal with the lunchtime or after-work throngs. He headed for one on the lower level, marveling at whoever had come up with the idea of planting retail shops squarely in the path of travelers. People waiting for trains with time to kill and commuters who rushed from tracks to office and needed convenience were provided with the perfect outlet for their hard-earned funds. From inside this bubble of commerce, one could barely tell the Depression existed. Strolling along the gleaming marble walkways, a man felt prosperous even on an empty stomach.
The drugstore counters thronged with kids on their way home from school. James wondered where these children got the dimes for an ice cream soda when there were grown men outside on the streets begging for those same dimes. He didn’t begrudge them; indeed, it seemed a hopeful sign that at least some of the nation’s offspring were having a happy childhood.
He had to wait to speak to the druggist while a portly lady with a small dog described her nightly tossing and turning. James thought of telling her to spend some time in a trench in Europe and she’d learn to sleep through mortar attacks, but thought better of it. It wasn’t her fault that he’d probably never sleep through the night again.
The man in the white coat listened with great sympathy, gave her a packet of powder, and sent her on her way before turning to James. “If I had a nickel for every whiny dame who comes in here I would own the place. What can I do for you? Anemia?”
“Uh, no.”
“You sure? You look a little pasty. Just a cold, then?”
James identified himself and pulled out the blue coat, which the druggist, unsurprisingly, did not recognize. The pills from the pocket were another story. He picked up a magnifying glass and examined each pill, holding them one at a time in the palm of his hand. “Nothing bad. No kind of mass-produced barbiturate or narcotic—that’s why you’re asking, right? You think this is something that can dope somebody up?”
“Well, that would be my guess. Harmless. This one is probably a vitamin—vitamin A, see the A stamped on it? People are nuts about vitamins these days, think that all the alphabet minerals can cure everything that ails. Not that there’s anything wrong with vitamins, of course, they’re important, but they’re not the bee’s knees. But the customers don’t listen. I guess any sense of security is better than none.”
“Is the other one a vitamin, too?”
“I don’t know. It might be a custom job, one that some guy like me brewed up special. I can’t tell without sending it for chemical testing. You want me to do that?”
“No.” James took the pill back before the man could think about it. “No, I need to hang on to that.”
“Besides, don’t you guys have your own lab that can do all that fancy stuff? I read about it in the paper. You’ve got Ness in charge now, after all. The reporters seem to think he’s going to turn the police force into a bunch of angels.”
James ignored this last sentence, thanked the man, and walked out past the kids. He found another drugstore and received the same information, this time from a dour old man who left out the speculation regarding the future of the Cleveland police force. Then James put the pills in his pocket and trotted down the steps to the train platforms.
Forty-five minutes later he found Walter window-shopping outside a tobacconist’s shop. The older cop now carried a parcel wrapped in brown paper and an unlit cigar—both, no doubt, “gifts” from a grateful citizen. “I found a baseball suit for Walter Junior’s birthday,” he told James, eyeing his partner with a piercing glance. “Where have you been?”
“Haunting the platforms. Why, did you think I was informing on you to the Untouchables?” James joked, nodding at the parcel.
He realized his mistake a split second later when Walter’s face darkened and he stepped closer to hiss, “Don’t razz me about that, Jimmy! It ain’t funny!”